Tuesday, June 26, 2012

From Yad Mordechai to Beit El, written on June 26th

Forty years ago, between my freshman and sophomore
year in university, I spent seven weeks in Israel on a summer tour. Those seven
weeks were jam-packed with holy sites, museums, and nature preserves.Parts I remember clearly but many were a blur
once I returned to America. Now, after having lived in Israel for over a
quarter of a century, I have revisited some of those blurry spots.

One of those is Yad Mordechai, a kibbutz near the
Gaza Strip. What I do remember from my visit in 1972 were metal silhouettes
standing in a field to simulate the kibbutz defenders in the battle for
survival in 1948. I also remember that it was very hot and that I was very
tired and that the tour guide seemed to talk on and on and on. I probably would
have never visited there again if my son had not been stationed in an army base
nearby.

We arranged a visit to him on a lovely winter day
two years ago. He was fairly certain that he would have free time in the
afternoon so we packed a picnic lunch, a box of treats for him, and headed
south. We made good time, arrived at his base earlier than we had planned, and
enjoyed a nice walk along the beach. Then we waited to hear from our son.

Communication has come a long way in the last dozen
years. If a soldier wanted to call home a generation ago he had to stand in
line at the pay phone and hope his family would be around when he finally
received his turn. Now, between cell phones and text messages, a soldier is
just a press of a button away. However, that only works when the commanding
officers let the soldiers use their phones.On that winter day two years ago every call we made to our son was
answered by his answering machine.

Not being a very patient person I was quite
frustrated. My husband suggested that we use the time to sightsee in the area and
I remembered Yad Mordechai. Many things were different from my visit years
earlier. It was not too hot and I was not over tired. There was no tour guide
to talk on and on and on. In fact, we did not see one human being at the historic
site. Fortunately there were enough signs for us to understand how a tiny band
of kibbutz farmers, many of them survivors of the Holocaust, were able to hold
off the mighty Egyptian army for five days.

We also saw at the lookout point how close the Gaza
Strip is. With sad hearts we remembered the thriving Jewish communities of Gush
Katif. Without their buffer Yad Mordechai is once again a border settlement.

After our tour we still had not heard from our son
and decided to give up. Listening to the news on our way home we understood why
he had never called or answered his phone. Later that night, a call from him
assured us that he was okay and we looked forward to seeing him the next time
he got out for Shabbat.

Visiting our son had been a washout but we did have
a nice outing. It inspired me to read the book I had taken from my uncle, The
Six Days of Yad-Mordecai by M.Larkin. In 1963 the author, a non-Jewish
woman, wrote a fascinating account of Yad Mordechai’s battle for survival. She
gives a human face to each of the individuals who defended their kibbutz so valiantly.
Although the kibbutz did fall into Egyptian hands the five days of battle made
a big difference in the outcome of the war. And five months later Yad Mordechai
was recaptured and the members came home. The kibbutz was rebuilt, flourished, and
by 1960 had grown to almost three times the size it was. Where did Yad
Mordechai get its land?

On page 256 M. Larkin wrote: As has happened all
over Israel, the lands of the Arabs who left were taken over by the Jewish
National Fund and leased to Jewish farmers.

Forty years ago, when I first visited Yad Mordechai,
Jewish settlement was just beginning in the liberated lands of the Bible. Today,
as I write, Jewish families are being evicted from their homes in the Ulpana
neighborhood of Beit El. This is because their apartment buildings, built with
permits and following government regulations, were built on barren land which
recently became the focus of a land dispute. What has happened in the last
fifty years? How did we go from letting the JNF take over abandoned Arab lands
to evicting caring Jewish families who have done the same thing?

I have no answers to my questions but I do believe
that the time will come soon when we will see hills of Judea and Samaria flourishing
with Jewish homes that no one will object to. The Jewish settlements of Gush
Katif will be rebuilt as Yad Mordechai was. Jews from all over the world will realize
that they need to make their homes in the Land of Israel. And then, instead of
fasting and praying for the rebuilding of the Holy Temple, in another twelve
days we will have a day of joy and celebration.

2 comments:

Hadassa
said...

Shalom!Yad Mordechai had six days - K'far Darom had 222 days, before and during the War of Independence. Dr. Aryeh Yitzhaki, K'far Yam/Efrat, wrote a book detailing Kibbutz K'far Darom's initial founding by a Bnei Akiva group (one of the "11 Points of the Negev", the only one in the Gaza Strip) and unfortunately unsuccessful struggle for survival, "The 222 Days of K'far Darom". A much quoted statement about the time, featured on the opening page of Dr. Yitzhaki's book, was made by Moshe Netzer, the Commander of the Second Palmach Platoon: "We knew that if K'far Darom couldn't endure, and the enemy reached Yad Mordechai, the Tel Aviv would be endangered. We valued the extreme resistance of this [kibbutz] that performed a difficult task. Only history will be able to accurately evaluate K'far Darom's contribution to our success in the War of Independence."Then Yad Mordechai and the Palmach fought alongside K'far Darom and Bnei Akiva, literally: Palmach troops went eagerly to help defend K'far Darom.Hadassa DeYoung, K'far Darom/Elon Moreh

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Born in Wichita, Kansas, I became a Baalat Teshuva, newly religious, in Phoenix, Arizona while attending ASU. After twelve years of marriage my husband and I made Aliyah with five children and settled in Shilo in the heart of Israel. Two more children joined the family as have daughters-in-law, sons-in-law, and grandchildren, Baruch HaShem. My favorite past times are learning, sewing, hiking, reading, cooking, baking, enjoying my family and friends, and, of course, writing. My first novel, Sondra’s Search, was published in 2007 and I am working on the sequel.